But his long training in the Police had deeply impressed his mind. And, furthermore, the idea of somehow blackmailing his way back into the force had taken desperate hold of him. His inclination had been all for returning home and letting Lightning know the fool he had made of both himself and Andrew McFardell, but his training prevailed.
He asked himself the meaning of Quinlan’s rise to fortune, and determined to see the thing through to the end. He would explore to the limit of his time, and look for any other secret these hills might discover for him. So he went back to his camp, deep hidden from all chance discovery by Quinlan, and planned out his further campaign.
Andy McFardell was returning home after complete failure. He was moodily contemplating his wasted effort. He had done everything possible; he had left nothing unexplored, sparing neither himself nor his horse; and now there was nothing left but to return again to the life which he had learned to hate and detest.
His way lay down the same valley where recently Molly had sought and found her missing cows. He was travelling over almost the identical ground which her pinto had covered. He had found the same water-hole, and his weary horse had refreshed itself at the same stream that came down from the cold recesses of the far-off hills. The day was hot, and the air swarmed with flies and mosquitoes. But these things made no impression upon him, and only his horse suffered.
The net result of his five days’ work was a final conclusion that his chance of buying his way back into the Police was practically nil. The whole position was clear enough. While he could discover not a tithe of evidence that the Irishman and his band of Indians were on the cross, yet there was much that needed explanation. The renegade was no longer the white Indian, simply existing in his miserable home in the hills by trap and gun.
No. That may have been his original case. But it was so no longer. He was ranching on a big scale. And furthermore his stock was mainly highly bred Pole-Angus cattle, the numbers of which suggested a capital value running into anything over fifty thousand dollars. Where had the money come from? But more important still, how had that industry grown up without other outside evidence than the sale of young stock in the Hartspool and Calford markets? In spite of the shattering of his dream of getting back into the Police Andy McFardell felt that the position was still not without possibilities.
Moving down towards the creek his horse flung up its head in a startled fashion. He was riding over the stretch of blue grass, at the very spot where, so short a while since, Molly had finally discovered her cows. Ahead lay the bush-clad banks of the stream. And away to the left of him the slope of the valley opened sharply into the gorge where Molly had parted from the man she called Silver-Thatch.
McFardell was concerned at once. He knew the meaning of his horse’s pricked ears, and the faint sound of its whinny. Another horse was somewhere in the vicinity, and, since the Marton farm was something less than five miles on, he searched the direction of his horse’s gaze for a sight of Molly. To his mind it must be she. Lightning would be likely to have moved out from his work on the ploughing.
There were only a few yards of the open left and he bustled his horse on. The beast moved with eagerness and passed into the bush. Then, in a moment, Andy flung himself back in the saddle and jerked his horse to a standstill.